Ayman Odeh’s new Joint List could become the third-largest party in Israel’s Knesset.
Photograph: Nir Alon/Zuma Press/Corbis

The leader of the new united front of Israel’s Arab parties – standing together for the first time in an unprecedented alliance – has vowed his overriding priority in next Tuesday’s elections will be to ensure the removal of the country’s rightwing prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu.

In an interview with the Guardian while campaigning in the city of Lod on Wednesday, Ayman Odeh – whose Joint List could win between 13 and 15 seats in the Israeli Knesset, polls predict – appeared to suggest his party might recommend opposition leader Yitzhak Herzog to form a government if it meant Netanyahu was ousted.

Ayman Odeh, centre, leader of the Joint List of Israeli Arab parties who have combined for the first time, meets supporters in the city of Lod amid a surge in support for his party that could see it becoming the Knesset’s third biggest bloc. Photograph: Peter Beaumont for the Guardian

Taking a brief break from a day of hectic campaigning, Odeh said: “The ultimate goal is to get out Netanyahu. That is the most important thing. We are not in Herzog’s pocket but we are interested in hearing what he has to say.

“This has been the worst government in Israel in decades not only because it killed 2,200 Palestinians in Gaza but because of its racist policies and because it has entrenched the occupation and increased the economic gap between Jews and Arabs in Israel.

“It has undermined democracy in the country and increased incitement against Arabs. That is why we feel the most important thing is to prevent Netanyahu forming another government.”

Odeh’s comments come as Netanyahu conceded on Thursday that the centre-left opposition could win next week’s general election, calling on voters not to take the chance with national security. In an interview with the Jerusalem Post, Netanyahu said: “If the gap between the Likud and Labour continues to grow, a week from now Herzog and Livni will become the prime ministers of Israel in rotation, with the backing of the Arab parties.”

Perhaps equally important as deposing Netanyahu – Odeh said – is that if his party achieves the electoral success the polls suggest, it would become the third largest in the Israeli parliament making him a candidate to lead the opposition if the final result – as some suspect – is a national unity government.

“If there is a national unity cabinet [involving both Herzog and Netanyahu] we will lead the opposition.” And that would provide Odeh and his partners with a key platform to campaign for greater rights for Israeli Arabs - who make up about 20% of a population of 8.2 million and are descendants of Palestinians who did not flee during the war over Israel’s 1948 creation.

Odeh’s Joint List emerged as a direct response to a new law introduced last year by the country’s hardline foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, which raised the percentage of votes needed for representation in the 120-member Knesset from 2% to 3.25% (about four seats) with the aim of pushing out the small and divided Israeli Arab parties.

Ironically that has not only encouraged the Israeli Arab parties to combine but has seen a sharp increase in the number of Israeli Arabs who have said they will vote in the elections on Tuesday after years of growing boycotts and voter apathy over their sense of political exclusion.

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Odeh insists that the new law was not the only reason for the political union but the fact that it was necessary to provide a voice for a minority that has felt increasingly marginalised and under threat during the recent period of right wing governments.

Most recently that has been represented by proposals for a Jewish nation state law and by Lieberman’s plan to transfer Israeli-Arab citizens en masse out of Israel into a new Palestinian state.

Despite Lieberman’s repeated attempts to bait Odeh, accusing him of “representing terror groups” seeking to destroy Israel from within and berating him as a “fifth columnist” who was not “wanted here” Odeh politely noted that his party was polling well ahead of Lieberman’s. “I’m very wanted in my homeland,” he added. “I’m part of the scenery. I resemble it.”

As evidence of the new celebrity status of the leader of the Israeli Arab Joint List, Ayman Odeh fields questions from a television crew in Lod about his favourite films and music. Photograph: Peter Beaumont for the Guardian

For his part the leader of Hadash, the veteran socialist party in Israel that emphasises Arab-Jewish cooperation, Odeh has now attracted a political star status most obvious on the stump in Lod on Wednesday in the repeated cries of “Ayman!” by shopkeepers and passersby keen to shake his hand or be photographed with him.

“Everyone wants to vote this time,” says Ghassan Monayer, an importer and distributor of medical supplies.

“In the past people have not bothered because they felt their voice did not count in a political system that ignored them. But the success of Joint List and the predictions of how many seats that it will win has given people hope.”

A pragmatic politician, Odeh explains that he believes his policies will benefit both Jews and Israel’s significant Arab minority both in strengthening its democracy and via greater Arab economic participation.

“We have two options,” he says. “We can be like Martin Luther King or Malcolm X. We can be like Mandela or those who were motivated by racial separation. We want a partnership between democratic Arabs and Jews who believe in democracy because we cannot form a democratic alternative if we are not democratic ourselves.

“But for the time being we have two things we need to deal with. We have drawn up a 10-year programme of policies we want to work on: women’s rights, local government and improved transport and economic development of the Arab cities.

“I’ve drawn up a list of 80 issues and both Jews and Arabs will benefit. An Arab who works and pays taxes rather than relying on social security benefits everyone. On the other list is one item: ensuring another rightwing government is not returned.”